1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications, and more particularly to an antenna diversity scheme for selecting one of multiple antennas of a transceiver based on packet errors.
2. Description of the Related Art
Antenna diversity methods are used by wireless transceivers with multiple antennas to switch the antenna to improve performance in a multipath environment. Heretofore, hardware diversity schemes have been devised to make the antenna decision on a packet-by-packet basis during packet reception. For example, the hardware measures the signal at the front end of the packet being received and picks the antenna with the best signal strength for receiving the balance of the packet. This antenna decision is typically made at the front end of the packet preamble, such as, for example, within the first 20 microseconds (us) of a 128 us preamble. The same antenna selected to receive packets is usually used for transmission where it is left to the receiver to successfully receive the packet.
The existing hardware diversity schemes have been based on various metrics, such as signal strength or signal integrity (e.g., RSSI, delay spread, etc.) or the like and tended to be complicated to implement and cumbersome to use.